The Choices of an Other
by Konda020946
Summary: Follow Harry into the world of the Others, as Wizards are not the only secret society his world has. Young Harry accidentally used his powers to create a Dark Vortex. Alexia a member of Londons Nightwatch has wittnesed it and now wants to recruit the young Other for the Light. I neither own Harry Potter, Nightwatch nor their universes, those belong Lukjanenko and Rowling.
1. Chapter 1

The boy, whose instinctual power output she had witnessed from afar seemingly did not know what it felt like to be happy. His aura showed not one ounce of happiness, it consisted of pure suffering. Surely the boy would become a Dark one.

It saddened the lead-investigator of London's Nightwatch to see such a promising young Other become a Dark one. She was sure that the boy had the potential to at least achieve the first level, if trained properly the boys power level could even bring him out of classification system.

What an asset for the Light the boy could be.

She asked herself if this asset would be an adequate use of her personal resources. London's Nightwatch surely had the capacities to ensure an action on that degree, but if the Daywatch somehow found out about it, they would surely try to contest the actions and would demand a Tribunal, to clarify the matters.

In a Tribunal the boy would not stand a chance against becoming a ward of the Daywatch, his aura was dominated by Dark behavior, that meant if nothing live-changing happened to him, his destiny laid in the hands of the Dark part of the Gloom.

She herself could use one of her three legal interventions of first level, to change the boy's aura. She had kept close watch on those three interventions. The first and the second one were gifts for her 18th birthday and her wedding day. The third one was assigned in the normal 24 year cycle, in which every Other one, who's power level was beyond classification, was assigned one. That way the Sorceress had earned 3 more interventions but the other ones had been used to this day.

The Remoralisation of an Other of the boy's power level was surely worth one of those. The modifications needed afterwards were miniscule at best. A few 6th and 7th level interventions to ensure that the boy was in her or the Nightwatch's care. She had those stacked high. She had chosen to risk it.

Alexandra looked around herself to ensure that no one was watching her picked up her Shadow and stepped into the first level of the Gloom. There she summoned the primal force of the gloom to ensure that neither the Inquisition nor the Daywatch had a right to contest her actions. "I Alexandra Grand Light Sorceress hereby declare, with the Light as my witness, that I use one of the interventions of the first degree that are rightfully mine, to remoralize the potential Other in front of me, to proselyte him to the Light."

9 year old Harry James Potter has had a bad day. First he was woken by his killer whale of a cousin, who tried to leave the house to hang out with his gang at night. Indubitably the idiot, who would not understand the meaning of the word stealth or sneakiness if it was tattooed onto his forehead, was caught and somehow Harry who had been locked in his cupboard the last two days was blamed for it.

Vernon proceeded to `punish´ the boy as he thought that it was adequate. Meaning Harry again was beaten, severely. As it was a school day again Vernon `graciously´ restrained himself in the usage of his belt and therefore Harry `only´ had suffered bruises.

After school Dudley and to his own surprise Harry had been picked up by Petunia.

This occurrence only happened because Harry's aunt needed a mule to carry the packages from the local furniture shop.

The nine year old was forced to carry and load the newly bought chairs and only a friendly attendant had saved him from having to carry the solid oak table too.

While the attendant was loading the table into the car Harry was seated besides the counter, where Petunia was chatting with one of her acquaintances. The discussion of the two gossipers somehow had returned to the topic of Harry's mother. As usual Petunia was only telling the worst kind of lies about his mother.

Harry had early found out that nobody was able to lie to him and he somehow always knew what the liars tried not to say. It was not like he understood everything immediately. If the person lied about something Harry did not understand he was given the information he was unable to understand, but still could not make sense of it. Additionally somehow anything his aunt and uncle thought about the word freakishness was gibberish.

Brought back from his mental excurse, by his aunt's rude pointing, he had to endure a tirade about what kind of slouch and trollop his mother seemingly had been. It is not exaggerated to say that nothing of it had been true. This obvious lie enraged Harry to that degree that he did use his anger directly. Of course he would not do anything out loud for it would surely lead to another beating, but still he was able to use any swearword he knew mentally. With every word he felt as if he was drained a little bit more to the point where he was glad to sit. As he had finished his mental cussing, he again sat there and waited for his aunt to finish. As the woman was a notorious gossiper she was far from finished and the talk continued for seemingly hours, which in reality were about 4 minutes.

Then it happened. Within a few seconds he felt an enormous rush of power that seemed to wash over him and cleanse him afterwards all color drained from his surrounding and he suddenly felt cold.

At the place where Harry was beforehand a black cloud shrieked painfully and then dissolved into nothing.

"Hello. My Name is Alexandra. May I inquire your name?" Harry heard a calm female voice asking. He immediately turned around to look into the direction of the speaker to see a redhead woman who seemed to be in her mid thirties and was about 5 foot 8 inches tall.

"Hello Alexandra, my Name is Harry Potter. Do you know where I am, why I am here, why is everything here so gloomy and cold and who or what are you?" The inquisitive boy asked, unnerved by the sudden changes around him, but comforted by the appearance of the woman.

"Oh someone who asks the right questions."Alexandra smirked. "This place is called the Gloom. This is a separate dimension, a different slice of the big cake that is reality, so to say. You are here because I brought you here. It is so cold and gloomy in here because it is the Gloom's nature to be gloomy and cold. As to who or what I am. I am what is called a Grand Light Sorceress, my name as I walked besides the mortals was Alexandra but that was a century ago. Nowadays I am called Alexia." The woman explained.

"Why did you bring me here? And is magic really real?" Harry asked.

"Yes magic is real. Actually you have performed a piece of magic not five minutes ago. That you were able to perform magic was the reason I brought you here."

"So I am a Sorcerer? And what was the magic I performed?"

"What kind of Other you are is not yet written into stone, it will depend on the decisions you will one day make. The magic you performed was a curse better known as Dark Vortex. You can see it there on top of your aunt's head. The thing that looks like a black cyclone is the Dark Vortex. You see if a curse like, you should die miserably, or something like that is spoken with the intention behind it, it creates this kind of curse. A humans curse mostly is weak and holds no real power. It can ruin your day or have you eat something bad. The curse has to be spoken with a lot of intention and rage behind it to actually achieve the goal it was created for. This changes if the curse is spoken by an Other. Then such a curse quite surely kills the person and with increasing strength of the person who used the curse, it will kill more and more innocent bystanders. You Harry are quite powerful. If you don't reverse the curse or someone with more power than you breaks it this curse will kill a lot of people."

"So you want me to reverse the curse? Is that why I am here?"

"No it isn't the reason. I am quite capable to undo the curse on my own. The reason why you are here is because there are two kinds of magicals or like we call ourselves two kinds of others. There are the Dark ones and the Light ones. Both sides are bound by the great contract. For your information the contract shall not be cited from the memory. If you ever need it just summon it from the Gloom, by thinking about it lying in your hands. The contract is the following."

We are the Others

We serve different forces

But in the Gloom there is no difference

Between the absence of the Darkness

And the absence of the Light

Our power is able to destroy the world

We make the great contract about the cease-fire

Every side lives according to its laws

Every side will have its own rights

We limit our rights and our laws

We are the Others

We found the Nightwatch

For the forces of the Light

To watch over the forces of the Dark

We are the Others

We found the Daywatch

For the forces of the Dark

To watch over the forces of the Light

Time will decide the winner

"Do you understand what it means?"Alexia asked.

"I think there was a war between Light and Dark and both sides did not want to annihilate the world so they made the contract. Am I right?" Harry pondered.

"Yes you are. As I told you I am a member of the Light. I felt you using that dark curse and as a member of the Nightwatch I was bound to investigate it. Believe me when I tell you I was astounded to see such a young uninitiated Other cast such a strong dark Vortex." Alexia stated.

"Am I in trouble then for breaking the contract?" Harry asked.

Hearing that she calmingly replied. "No you are not. At least no longer. You see before I came here you would surely have become a Dark one. There was no chance for you to become a member of the Light. You might remember a line in the contract about the rights of an Other. Each of us has depending on his or her power level rights to intervene into the lives of other people. The bigger the influence is the rarer are the permissions to do such a thing. I used one of my rarest to change your morals and emotions. I made sure that instead of you being angry pained or full of sorrow, you would be able to feel love happiness and luck. Then I pulled you into the Gloom and read the contract to you. That procedure is called initiation. That normally means that you are now on the way to become a member of the Light and that I am now bound to teach you the laws and abilities of our kind. I hope you can forgive me my intrusion into your life."

"If I have understood you correctly, you did it because you hoped to recruit me to your side of the battle. I don't like that to be honest. The advantages are great but you seem to only be interested into me as a weapon."

"You don't need to fight. Only members of the Nightwatch and the Daywatch do so. You don't have to enter the Nightwatch. You can live a live outside the watches with all the advantages of an Other as long as you don't violate the contract. The only thing you will have to do is taking the classes explaining you your powers and the laws, afterwards you can do what you want to do. As the one who initiated you I am supposed to give you the classes but as I work for the Nightwatch I am entitled to hand over this responsibility to the watch. You have the choice to take anyone else as a teacher who is willing to teach you. You would also be able to leave the Gloom and the powers you would get from them behind and become an ordinary human again, but if you use your powers while choosing to be human the Nightwatch will not be able to protect you from the Daywatch or the Inquisition."

"So if I become a Light one I get to chose between being a member of the Nightwatch or not. If I chose not to be a member I have to follow the laws the same way as I would have to without being an Other at all, but I would be able to use my powers. I would only have to limit my power usage. If I enter the watch I can use my powers as long as I stick to the contract. Did I get that right?" Harry asked.

"Yes you did, but the only choice you have to make now would be if you want to be an Other or not. Everything else is to be decided in the future."

"I have a few last questions before I make my decision. Is that ok?"

"Go for it!"

"Do I have to tell the Dursleys, do I have to stay with them and what about regular school?"

"You are not required to finish school but it is highly recommended. As I don't know who the Dursleys are I suspect they are your guardians. Is the reason for you not telling them and not wanting to live with them that they abuse you?" Alexia asked knowing that such a thing is even if rare not imposible.

"I have to live in the cupboard under the stairs." Harry stated, pointing at the ghostly image that represented his aunt in the Gloom. Alexia was unable to detect any falsehood and immediately decided not to delete the Vortex over the woman's just to scale it down and pre-set its activation time, so that no one innocent had to suffer.

"I think we can forge papers so that you can live with a member of the Watch or in the watch directly as we have rooms for there too. If that is what you want." SHe calmingly stated as the last few sentences had agitated the child.

"I think the correct phrase for this situation is where do I sign?"


	2. Chapter 2

The London branch of the Nightwatch was located at the corner of Victoria Embankment and Bridge Street. The six storied building had several hidden floors not unlikely to the design idea the Dark ones of Moscow used to create their headquarter. The difference came into play when you looked to where the additional stories were located. Instead of using the human flats as shield against attacks from the Light ones like the Dark ones in Moscow, the Night Watch of London had put their 5 stories on top of the existing six mundane ones. The high chimneys of the building, that the humans of London were able to see, actually were the supporting beams of the building that housed the Night Watch. The advantage of this placement was a spectacular view of the Thames, the Big Ben, Westminster-Bridge and the future site of the London Eye. The building had several hidden entrances, one placed directly in the Westminster tube station located nearby. Alexandra decided against that entrance as she wanted to show the boy where the headquarter was. She decided against using the main entrance as she wanted to show off a little bit and every boy of his age liked being part of a secret organization or group, that had a secret lair and nothing said secret lair more than a hidden entrance. His reaction was as expected.  
"This is so cool." He whispered as they approached the point where the quay wall and the bridge wall met. She shooed him onto a spot vacant of humans and tourists, as they seemed to ignore the place at all. She then took Harry's hand and stepped into the Gloom, facing the river. There in front of them were some circular stairs, that led down into the underground and were closed off by bars that glowed menacingly.  
She turned to Harry and explained. "From the outside you can only use this entrance if you are authorized to do so. If you come from the inside you can always leave this way. The spells securing this place are not unbreakable or anything similar. That would be a waste of energy and to place such heavy enchantments around Normal humans you need the authorization from the Inquisition. Therefore we only put up locking and alarm spells that a Light one would be able to open if he is authorized. Of course a clever dark one can also open this gate but he or she can't do it without making a lot of noise." While she said that, she had opened the gate and led the boy down into a tunnel, where they stepped out of the Gloom and continued their way towards the headquarter. Said tunnel ended in front of a wooden door that concealed a lift. The door was opened with a few movements of her hand and the lift was called the normal way.

* * *

A minute later they stood in front of the bureau of London's highest ranking Light one. She explained Harry that he had to wait in front of the door with the woman's secretary. The man was a lower level Light one but so fiercely dedicated to his job that they would have been pressed hard to find a replacement for him. He had been a tourist from the continent, a few years back, as he had been noticed as a potential Other one and after he was initiated he was allowed to choose between staying in his home country or coming back to London to work there. As he had thought about moving to London before he stayed and became a member of their watch. After a few months of orientation and a practicum as an investigator, both Alexandra and he agreed that he wasn't material for the patrol jobs and he decided to do office duty. At this job he excelled and since then stayed there.  
He wasn't the best with kids and so just asked him if he had any question about the Nightwatch he wanted answered. Unfortunately he did not know that that was probably his worst idea of the day. Harry seemingly had saved any questions for the moment when he was sure that the nice lady would not dump him for being annoying. He seemed okay with the concept of asking the secretary any questions as he was unlikely to be able to persuade Alexandra of sending him back. Even as Alexandra returned from her conversation with her boss he was still questioning the secretary.

* * *

"Good Morning boss." Alexandra said happily.  
"Don't try to divert me Alex. The Daywatch is trying to collapse my desk with paperwork, due to your little first degree intervention. Honestly I am proud that you used one of your treasures so wisely but I am also a bit disappointed with you not informing me beforehand. That would have allowed me to run interference and finish the initiation before the Dark Ones get a knack of it. Now they have a chance of claiming him in front of a tribunal." She said hotly.  
"Actually he is fully initiated. I finished it right after the remoralization. He was so happy about the fact that he had not to go back to his aunt and uncle that he had enough positive energy to be fully initiated." Alexandra said with a smug look.  
"That bad of a family life hmm? Well I will talk with him. Perhaps I can help. Can't be worse than what I went through." She said while smiling. "You have done a good job with that one. As far as I can see the Dark Ones don't even know yet that the boy is here. How did you know which of the entrances wasn't under surveillance?"  
"I didn't know. It was a lucky guess paired with showing the boy a secret entry to an even more secret hideout. I think the Gloom just favored me today." She said with a smug smile.  
"We can only hope that that happens more often. What else do you need?"  
"Well I hoped that I could take the boy in if not possible I would ask if one of the other female members is volunteering. If nobody is willing or able to take him in I would ask the watch to take him in as a ward. Additionally I would ask to send a small recon team to his family's house to look if they have any personal memorabilia from his parents left and to make sure that the vortex doesn't hurt any innocents."  
"If you think you can handle your workload and raising a child I will not interfere. I know how hard it is on us not to be able to have children without seeing them wither away and die. I understand your need. Just don't push him too hard okay?" Alexandra's boss asked with a comforting smile. Alexandra answered that with a very happy smile. "You seem to have something else on the mind. Do you mind sharing?"  
"The boy, Harry said his family called him freak and said that they were lying to him when they said his parents died in a car crash. Can one of the team go through their memories and have a look what they meant?" She asked a little shy for asking so much.  
"We have only three Others who are capable of doing that in the short time frame you have set with the vortex. Maxwell is on an assignment and you should not be separated from Harry too much. That leaves only me for the job. I think I have the time to do this if you and can hold fort until I am back." The boss said while standing up and dusting off invisible smudges. "Do me a favor and call in your wife and tell her to come over and have a look at her new son. I know how much you love your little jokes but pulling a boy out of a top hat seems a little extravagant. In fact call her so that the boy can have acheckup by a doctor. As he is from an abusive household he is probably suffering from malnutrition and has a lot of old wounds." She said while opening a cupboard and taking out a trench coat. Afterwards she went towards the door and went out. "Franklin I am out of the office for about two and a half hours, I am taking Malcolm and Agnes with me, so make sure the shift advisor knows that they are not on call for the next 3 hours. Alexa will hold down the fort while I am away." She then turned to the boy and said. "Hi Harry I am Alexa's boss and am on my way to finalize anything I have to with your former family. Do you have anything there you want to take with you? Or anything you want me to ask them?"  
Harry shyly replied. "If you can look for anything that belonged to my parents, I mean if it doesn't take too much time."  
"Don't sweat it. It's childsplay to do that for me, but would you do me a favor and stay around Alexa for the time being? Running around here unsupervised could be dangerous and I don't want you to be harmed in any way. OK?" She said in a grandmotherly tone. Hearing that Harry nodded and followed Alexandra into her boss's office, where he was seated onto a couch. "How about you send someone from the analytic division to get the boy some new clothes Alex? You can put them down as expenses. Just don't buy snob brand products." The boss said while closing the door, behind herself.  
"Your boss is nice Alex." Harry said.  
"Yes she is a big old softie. I just don't want to face her if she is her battle mindset. She is pretty scary if she is. You know she allowed me to take you in. If you want it I am even allowed to adopt you." As he heard that Harry practically glowed from happiness.  
"I can have a proper family?" He asked astonished.  
"Well that depends on the definition of proper." Alex smirked. "You see as Others we rarely have children as they probably would not inherit our gift and would die before we do. Most of us don't have the courage to risk that. Therefore you will very much likely not have any brothers and sisters. The next thing is that my partner is a woman too, so you won't have a father per se. Is that a problem for you?" She asked now a little nervous herself.  
"I don't mind at all. I never understood why aunt Petunia slandered about that. If you love someone and he or she loves you back and both of them are old enough to know what they do, why should they not be together? I just got two mothers if you allow me to call you that. At least that is what I want to be able to call someone someday in the future." Harry said while being confident at the beginning but getting quite timid towards the end.  
"I can only talk for me, but I would very much like that. If I had to guess judging after Michaela's character that would be also a yes, but as I said I can't be sure. I want to call her now. She's a doctor and will give you a checkup to see what we can do for you and what is wrong with you physically. That is if you agree." She explained and as he nodded she picked up the phone and dialed.  
"Hi Alex, why are you calling me? I can't sense anything wrong, so you don't call to cancel our dinner reservation." Michaela said with a smirk in the voice.  
"No I am not. Today I found a boy. He was a potential Other one. Though due to his living circumstances he was bound to become a Dark one. I used one of my personal interventions to remoralize him and initiated him directly. His home has been highly abusive so I took him directly to the boss and asked her what to do. She allowed me to adopt him. I now wanted to ask you if you want to do so too."  
"He got your set of morals now. That is as close as he grew up with us as our son as it gets. I fully agree." The smirk in her voice turned into a full blown smile.  
"Can you come over and give him a checkup? He is quite scrawny and looks too small for his age." Alexandra asked.  
"I am on my way." Michaela simply stated.  
"Take the tube. The city is about to clog. The boss will be the last one to make it out there without being stuck in the traffic." Alexandra said while having a look at the probability lines. "By the way, Harry asked if he is allowed to call us mum. He said while is not ready to do it yet, he would very much like to do so in the future." While saying that Alexandra became very giddy again.  
"Yes and see you in half an hour." After that Alexandra had put down the receiver of the phone.  
"She is on her way and she is okay with you being adopted by us. She also agreed that you can call her mum as soon as you are ready to do so." Alexandra said smirking and looked at Harry who was examining the office from his place on the couch. It was understandable the office was crammed with artifacts and a lot of knick-knacks that the boss had collected over the years of her life. It was quite a lot of stuff for an Other as young as the boss. Actually it was quite rare for an Other as young as her boss being the head of such an important Nightwatch office, but her abilities had impressed the former boss to that degree that she was chosen over Alexandra even with Alexandra having more experience as the boss had. Honestly Alexandra preferred the fieldwork over office duty and was glad that she hadn't been chosen to be the new boss. "Do you have any other questions you want me to answer?" Hearing that Harry focused totally on Alexandra and started to question her again. This went on until Michaela arrived.  
"Hi Alexandra and you must be Harry. I am quite sure that you will have to keep the girls away with a stick if you are 15 or 16." Michaela said while ruffling his hair. "I am Michaela Alexandra's wife of 45 years." At that Harry stared at Alexandra astonished and sputtered.  
"You two are married for 45 years? How old are you? You don't look that old."  
"Oh sorry. I forgot to tell you that an Other doesn't age after his or her initiation."  
"I am going to stay a child forever? Why didn't you tell me? I didn't know that!" Harry practically shouted.  
"No a child ages till they reach their prime so something along the lines of 24, 25 years."  
"Oh sorry. Excuse my shouting please." He said timidly.  
"Don't worry about that. I would have reacted the same way. Alexandra have you forgotten to tell him anything else?" Michaela asked her wife.  
"Nope that is everything, but I wouldn't remember if I forgot it either." Alexandra said cheekily. At this Michaela sighed and turned to Harry again. "Alexandra said that you have been abused. Do you allow me to give you a checkup?"  
"If you have to." He said.  
Michaela motioned above his head a few seconds and furrowed her brow. "I want to use a spell called Sisyphus' Remedy on you. This will feel strange but it won't hurt. It will bring your body to the optimal possible level. Basically it will bring you to the level that you would have been able to achieve if you had been fed optimally and had exercised healthily. The second spell I want to use is the eye of Apollo it will heal your eyes, so that you are able to see without glasses. That one will pinch while your eyes acclimate. After we are finished with those two I will take your measurements and go buy you new clothes, as you can't run around in those rags." Harry immediately agreed to the fact happy about the fact that he would be able to see without his glasses. Michaela used the spells and hare grew half a foot and was no longer skinny to the point where a gust of wind could have blown him away. In this case the oversized clothes of Dudley were a blessing as fitting clothes would have been uncomfortably tight or would have ripped. After she examined the boy if the spell had worked correctly she used the next spell and Harry took off his glasses and was able to see clearly. Due to this fact he jumped around happily. Alexandra and Michaela watched the bundle of joy for a few minutes until they asked him to calm down and stand still so that Michaela could take measurements. As she was done with this, she stood up made her farewells and left for the next shopping centre. For the next 1 and a half hours Alexandra explained Harry the basics of the society of the Others.

* * *

In Surrey the team was finishing up the cleanup and had removed any reminders of Harry or his parents from the house and were starting the last phase of their operation, namely the mental search of the Dursleys and wiping their minds of anything related to Harry. The boss was the one doing this job and was intrigued with the memories of Vernon as he had known that Harry had magic but had never seen him use magic or seen anyone else do so. Afterwards she made way to Petunia hoping to finish the job quickly enough to do the rest of this week's paperwork.  
Jumping into her mind she finally found out from whom they knew of magic. Unluckily it turned out to be not the Others kind of magic, but the magic of the idiotic wand weavers and even worse was the person who had placed Harry with the Dursleys. She now was seething from anger for several reasons. She had to take action in protecting Harry and that meant paperwork. Obviously she took a very big disliking to paperwork. The second reason was that she would have to deal with the person she wanted to see the least of all people on the planet. Funnily Light Ones were unable to truly hate, but this person was nearly crossing that line. One day in the future she would have to deal with her moronic brother. This whole mess was his fault, why did he have to meddle. "Albus you old fool." She hissed.


	3. Boom

The High Light Sorceress and leader of the Nightwatch of London Ariana, formerly known as Ariana Dumbledore, was about to observe the outcome of Harry's dark twister. It wasn't her favorite pastime but someone had to do it. It was the action of a Light One after all. Even if it was done before he had been initiated, she as an agent of the Nightwatch had to record the outcome and had to make sure that the Dark ones did not calculate the damage to high and acquire a permit with higher category, than justified by the magic done by Harry. Luckily for the Nightwatch Alexandra hadn't told Ariana that she had decreased the Vortexes intensity dramatically. Otherwise the strike would have had enough potential to blast a hole in time and space at the exact size of Belgium. (Rather undramatic in my opinion) (I might have over calculated that, but it's worth using that line. There is a Cyber-cookie for the first person to tell me where the line is from.) In reaction the Daywatch would have attained the right for an action of similar size, but as it was, Ariana was able to lie by omission, even if she knew that the original size of the vortex was gigantic.

Ariana used the time, given to her by this delay, to draw up the plans for the next few days. First she had to plan out the things she had to do with and for the boy. The High Light Sorceress shuddered at the amount of paperwork she would have to do, but it would pay off in the end.

The first thing, she had to do, was making an arrangement for a Short trip to wand-waver magical London, as they had to transfer the boy's magical inheritance to a safe and foremost a for the ministry inaccessible location. Even if the boy's children would probably not be Others or magicals the chance for them obtaining the gift again was there and she did not want greedy ministry fingers stealing the boy's inheritance.

Furthermore she had to contact the head of the Unspeakables to make sure that the boys' magical signature was deleted from their archives so that no one would be able to enter him into the contracts, in his stead and to make sure that their magical detectors did not register him. Lastly said Unspeakable had to collect all the evidence referencing to Harry Potter and place it under a seal, if it was not removable or hand it over to her, to put it out of the ministry's grasp.

She had to do that, because of the fact that magic is magic. It doesn't matter how you use it, it still is magic. Any magical being on earth starts out with the abilities and potential abilities of an Other, but the first time an Other, be it potentially light or dark, uses a wand, the others magical abilities forcibly inverts. This forces the core of the person to use the body's own magic instead of the surrounding magic, making the person able to pass the gift down to their children, as the magic is constantly directed through the body, charging their reproductive organs with magical background radiation. Actually a lot of the magical lines which officially squibbed out were ended by an heir having an encounter with an Other before using their first wand, effectively destroying the chance of a magical or an Other child being born to the heir. Therefore a lot of officially dead lines had still living Other heirs and lots of not magical descendants.

The change in their core meant that where an Other uses the magic of the beings that surround him or her, a Wand wizard uses his or her own body's power. Were Others were relatively immortal, due to the huge influx of magical energy the wand wizards had only their own magic combating their bodies sicknesses and therefore could only extend their life significantly and would not obtain relative immortality.

Luckily the Others were able to hide their existence and the costs for obtaining relative immortality, so that the lineage obsessed purebloods were unable to pick up any trail of the elusive ageless magicals.

This had to be done a few decades after the death of the Dark and former Light Absolute Sorcerer Merlin as the fact that none of his children had the gift of magic became common knowledge and the wand-wavers became suspicious of the magicals that had no need for foci and their reason for not having magical descendants. Fortunately most of the common sense humans have, seems to be lost, as soon as you touch a wand and even more convenient was that no one was able to discern the reason for said occurrence.

For the sake of peace the Inquisition ruled that any interaction with the wand-wavers magical community had to be done concealed and that any discovered interaction should be covered up by lies and falsehoods. So Ariana's own initiation was covered up by an accident causing her to "lose control" over her magical abilities. A few years later she staged her own death to hide her stopped aging process. After observing the probability lines she was furthermore able to see that her brother's boyfriend had to be stopped and their liaison had to end. So she arranged her death to cause a schism between them and force her brother on a more acceptable path. Regrettably this was not a permanent change and Albus soon lost himself in the illusions of his own grandeur.

Harry's own initiation's cover up had been handed to them by Harry himself. The Person formerly known as Harry Potter would die with the Dursleys and Harry would adopt his new mother's fake last name. That is until he has reached the power level needed to let his surname disappear in the archives.

That means as soon as possible the young sorcerer Harry had to disappear before he starts using his newfound abilities. Therefore he had to be not existing for the ministry's underage magical detectors. That is the reasons for Ariana's need to remove his signature from the system.

Her ideas had the makings of a sound plan and she was unable to discern a flaw, as any inquires were to be rebuffed by the ministry's Unspeakables and the Goblins, claiming that the fault laid in the Potter family's bylaws. As soon as she had done this and both Alexandra and Michaela had put their names onto the adoption papers Harry was safe from any harm originating from the wand wavers. The only real danger then would originate from dark Others and the apartment of those two was protected enough against them.

Of course Alexandra and Michaela could not stay in their flat in central London indefinitely. It was far too small for a family of three after all. So she had to look for a nice little house in the suburbs. Those were protected easily enough as long as you started the protections a few meters inside the borders of the estate, that way you could get around any nuisances from the Inquisition. If the house was under a simple aversion field the humans were unable to get close enough to notice that there was a house and they were also unable to actively see what happened on the property. As you had to be able to feel the magic around you, which was an ability all wand-wavers had lost the moment they touched their first ones, even they were unable to see the property.

The spells used for that kind of protection were different from the Muggle aversion fields the wand wizards used as those were actively checking anybody for magic and averted the senses of those that did not possess magic. This combination effectively made the wand wizards unable to notice the society of the Others but allowed the Others to fully use the infrastructure of the wand wavers.

Their potential of the Others to fool the ministry propaganda-fed sheep was additionally furthered by the fact that even the oldest and most narrow minded Other was able to effectively camouflage himself or herself as a Muggleborn, which were generally not noted by most other wizards and Muggleborns themselves thought of them as another quirk of the magical society.

Having finished her internal monologue about the gullibility of the second magical society Ariana started to pen out the request she had for the small family's future home and send the letter one of her older acquaintances that worked in the real estate business.

The point in time where she had finished that was identical to the moment that marked the demise of the Dursleys. Soon she had finished her observation of the explosion that consumed the Dursleys house and them and she agreed with the Daywatchs assessement.

She was glad that no one else seemed to be involved in the freak accident caused by a small misfired firework, landing in the conveniently open hatch of the luckily abandoned gas truck, which then ignited the subterraneous gas line between the two security valves located at number two and six privet drive.

Astonishingly the small child igniting the firework, which was a leftover from Guy Fawkes Night, was in the backyard of number 3 Privet drive and did not notice any part of the accident as he was immersed in the delightful spectacle caused by a small volcano that spit colorful sparks. Therefore the boy was none the wiser of the deaths he just caused and wouldn't remember it either.

The driver of the truck was right at that moment in number 2 privet drive as she was phoning the AA to pick her up and to send a mechanic to take care of her broken down truck.

* * *

After she had returned to her office she noted that the members of the watch had organized Harry's adoption papers within the hour, which was mostly due to the involvement of Alexandra and Michaela as both were well loved in the watch. After handing over the papers and making a few copies either for personal or official use she ordered her subordinate to take her new son home and tuck him into bed as both child and mother were needed tomorrow for the finishing touches of the procedure that had already been started by her. Michaela on the other hand was advised to meet up with a real estate agent at the next day while Alexandra, Harry and Ariana were doing their part.

As this was finished Ariana allowed herself to kick back with a cup of coffee and think about the ramifications her brothers work and involvement might have.

She knew for sure that any involvement of her brother meant serious business and that meant she had to pre-plan for the most impossible outcomes and have further contingencies for those plans. He might not be an evil person per se but his disregard for other people's opinions and preferences had ruined more than one live.

She was not going to let anything happen to her best field agent. She knew that she might one day need to sacrifice one of her subordinates to ensure the balance or victory for the Light but she would fight Tooth and Nails to ensure that this wouldn't be a decision she would have to make. She had been lucky till now as the Darks were seemingly unwilling to play any big games and therefore she did not have to make any drastic decisions. Sure she had her contingencies prepped and loaded and the ones made by her predecessor were still in effect, but nowadays she was just happy that she did not need to use them. Now some of them might be needed to be altered slightly to be used against her brother and his people.


	4. A few Spells

Harry, Michaela and Alexandra were having a late breakfast and were generally enjoying the comfort of the newfound family. Harry's antisocial tendencies, honed by years of mental torture at the hands of the Dursleys, were effectively countered by the basic empathy any Other had from the start. He simply felt welcome and accepted with his two new guardians and felt that they reciprocated the feeling. At nine o'clock Alexandra put on her cloak and at the moment she attempted to leave the house she received a call. Not on her mobile phone, but a direct mental call from Ariana.

"I am not disturbing." Ariana send in a matter of fact tone, which clearly showed, that she knew that she wasn't interrupting anything. It was quite likely that Alexandra's boss had actually waited for her to finish her other conversations and had called as soon as she was finished.

"Yes." Alexandra replied due to the fact, that no matter what situation you were in, it always paid to be well mannered.

"You don't have to go to work today. I need you to have a look at your possible new houses. Two of those houses are in Essex and one is in Kent. The addresses are. (AN: I don't have the slightest idea what to write there and it doesn't matter so imagine some random numbers and names. I am rather partial to the house numbers 1329, 001 and 1313 and recommend Carroll Avenue, Cemetery lane or Mockingbird lane but that is my flavor of the month.) The real estate manager is at the First one at 11 o'clock. Give me a call when you have chosen and I organize the protections till tomorrow evening."

"Got it boss." Alexandra answered fully knowing, that she was capable enough to make a decision for all three of them.

"Oh and tell your wife to meet me with Harry at the bookstore in Charing Cross Road at ten. We have got an appointment at half past ten. Also tell her not to forget a disguise for your son, magical or otherwise."Even due to inability of these mind calls to send emotions with it Alexandra felt that her boss had expressed a certain disdain for the need of the disguise.

"May I ask why a disguise is needed?" She asked, without even thinking about her manners in the presence of an involvement of her son.

"Your wife will tell you the whole story today over supper. I don't feel like going through it twice today, be assured that there is no visible, imminent danger to your son and that I am taking any precautions necessary." Ariana said and Alexandra accepted it. You don't enter your second century without learning the worth of patience after all. After a short Goodbye between colleagues Alexandra imparted the necessary information to her wife and went off to the first address.

Michaela after cleaning the dishes and putting them away made sure that both she and Harry were dressed accordingly to fashion and ensured with a small spell that nobody would be able to recognize him. The handy feature of the spell was, that to pierce it, without dissolving it and therefore creating an incident, you needed to have a higher power level than the one who had cast the spell and as an Other outside of category it was highly unlikely to encounter anyone capable of looking through it without ripping it apart. Harry and Michaela arrived at the Bookshop a tube ride later and with 15 minutes to spare. After a short shopping spree the trio went to the meeting they had to go to. Unrecognized and without making fuss the group passed the dingy pub and crossed Diagon Alley, though they had to pull Harry away from some of the more exotic displays. Such were the Apothecary, where Harry was looking for number of ingredients, which he repeatedly quoted out aloud and he also included the preparations manual needed for the potion.

"Thrice the brinded cat hath mew'd.  
Thrice and once, the hedge-pig whin'd.  
Harpier cries:—'tis time! 'tis time!  
Round about the caldron go;  
In the poison'd entrails throw.—  
Toad, that under cold stone,  
Days and nights has thirty-one;  
Swelter'd venom sleeping got,  
Boil thou first i' the charmed pot!  
Double, double toil and trouble;  
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.  
Fillet of a fenny snake,  
In the caldron boil and bake;  
Eye of newt, and toe of frog,  
Wool of bat, and tongue of dog,  
Adder's fork, and blind-worm's sting,  
Lizard's leg, and owlet's wing,—  
For a charm of powerful trouble,  
Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.  
Double, double toil and trouble;  
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.  
Scale of dragon; tooth of wolf;  
Witches' mummy; maw and gulf  
Of the ravin'd salt-sea shark;  
Root of hemlock digg'd i the dark;  
Liver of blaspheming Jew;  
Gall of goat, and slips of yew  
Sliver'd in the moon's eclipse;  
Nose of Turk, and Tartar's lips;  
Finger of birth-strangled babe  
Ditch-deliver'd by a drab,—  
Make the gruel thick and slab:  
Add thereto a tiger's chaudron,  
For the ingrediants of our caldron.  
Double, double toil and trouble;  
Fire burn, and caldron bubble.  
Cool it with a baboon's blood,  
Then the charm is firm and good." {William Shakespeare}

"It is quite good for someone of your age to quote the bard so eloquently but there always is a place and a time. Right now we are out of time. So please hurry up." Ariana ordered Harry.

Following his new mothers bosses orders he calmed down and within a few minutes they arrived at the lobby of Gringotts. There Arina strode directly to one of the unoccupied tellers.

"Good day. My name is not of importance, but I and my two companions here are expected to meet Senior Accountant Grindpowder."

"The Accountant is not meeting anyone." The Goblin replied sneeringly.

"Why does it always come to this?" Arina mumbled and placed her hand on the counter sucking out the ambient magic and making the rune engraved marble block crumble to dust. "I am to meet him because I have to organize an-Others accounts on behalf of the Nightwatch. I am to meet him now and I have got an appointment, which states the same. So are you going to show us to him, or am I forced to undo a few more things the same way as your counter?" The terrified goblin complied and under the scrutinizing gaze of a few witches and wizards, they were led away.

Half an hour later the Potter account was sealed to the day his descendants would come to claim their heritage. The liquid cash of the account was to be reinvested and those investments were to be checked upon by a duo consisting of one goblin and one of the Nightwatch's seers. A runic array was to be put up to check if any of the newly entering young witches and wizards were descendants of Harry and any of them who had not yet been paired with a wand were to be allowed the choice of meeting their ancestor. To ensure secrecy of the world of the Others, specific secrecy spells, that could only be undone by a light Other were added and everything was peachy. Those were the exact same stipulations that all the other accounts sealed by Others had gotten but Ariana had to change the contract twice to ensure that no foul play had been done by the Goblins. The most astonishing thing about that was that it only took two hours. The only things Harry had removed from the vault were a few mementos of his parents including letters and pictures.

Harry's, Ariana's and Michaela's next destination was the building of the Ministry of Magic. There they entered through the side entrance which was not disguised as a telephone box but as a simple door that led down into the atrium. There they were awaited by a wizard whose face was hidden by an enchanted mask that did not much against the abilities of the two light high sorceresses. The group was led out of the Atrium and down several corridors until they arrived in a room that held hundreds of small crystals, which grew from a tree the same way as leaves would do.

The Unspeakable ordered Harry to put his hand against the tree and Ariana then ordered him to read out the Great Contract aloud. This signified that Harry now was under the supervision of another magical government and therefore was their responsibility. As he had done it the tree shuddered for a few seconds and shed one of the crystals which burst apart the moment it hid the ground. As soon as the crystal shattered a bunch of metallic devices in Hogwarts stopped working, nobody was there to notice this fact as the only person who would notice the difference was examining the remains of a house in Surrey.

Harry was then led to another room which dwarfed the first room by a large margin. This cavern was enormous and they stood at the shore of a lake on which thousands of small candles in wooden bowls floated. The Unspeakable explained that the candles were imbued with the magical signature of a person, which was automatically collected from the tree the moment the child was born. The Unspeakable summoned the candle and handed it to Ariana who promptly melted it down and scattered the remains. The only thing left to do was collecting the documents that had Harry mentioned in them. Most of them were destroyed, but a few that were sealed due to them being connected to the Potter Family at large. Closing up their business in central London Ariana left the two others and went back to work. Michaela and Harry on the other hand called Alexandra and arranged a meeting point.

Scene Break

Albus Dumbledore was alarmed. Fife minutes ago he had returned from an overnight session of the Wizgamot, where he was able to repel a law proposed by Lucius Malfoy that would have severely threatened the position of most muggle-born in Britain, and as soon as he had entered his bureau he was notified by one of the castles house-elves that he had received a floo-call from "Crazy cat lady." to quote the elf literally. It did not take much thinking on his part to equal this description with the identity of Arabella Figg. Though calling her left him a bit more confused than he expected to be. Her incoherent mumblings included the mentioning of something called a fuel-truck and security valves. His distinct impression was that he needed to calm her down before he could extract any useful information from her. After a good half hour of coaxing her into visiting the castle, the duo sat in his office and after administering a calming draught he finally got useful information from her.

Those pieces of information send him bolting right into the fireplace, without checking his instruments depicting Harry's health, and directly to Privet drive where he watched what featured an eerie similarity to the damage of the bombs he had seen falling during the war. The dexterity and agility the old man indicated with said movements belied his apparent age.

Though were those craters were done by muggle cruelty the place that formerly was Privet drive number 4 now was a showpiece for dark magic. The whole place reeked of the need to hurt and damage and only looking at it made him queasy in his stomach.

Casting diagnostic spell after diagnostic spell the headmaster was desperately trying to get readings of the origin of the curse, the caster and after those came up negative he was finally trying to locate Harry, but those spells came up negative too.

Seeing that the already blanch man whitened further and hurried back to Hogwarts to check up on his trackers placed on the boy. You can imagine his face as he noted that they were no longer working. As they were tied to his blood they were ought to work always and everywhere. The only explanation for the inaction of the tracers was the boy's death. Albus Dumbledore fainted as he recognized the ramifications of the whole problem.

Scene Break

Lucius Malfoy was excited (AN: not in that way) one of his spies told me that the Potter boy was in the Ministry. He was wearing a glamour charm, that somehow could not be canceled but his informant was sure of the identity. As Lucius was a pragmatist he of course asked for proof and got it in form of the fact that Harry Potters name vanished from the list of underage wizards a few moments after the group containing the boy entered the department of mysteries. Only minutes later the boy's magical signature was gone completely compared to his former clouded state that indicated that the boy was behind wards. The only place where something like that could be accomplished was the department of mysteries. The only one entering at that time was the glamoured boy.

Lucius was not one of the Dark Lord's inner circle members without reason, as he was the only one who had any deductive abilities and basic logic.

This logic told Lucius that he could in no way be related to any incident concerning the boy. So he used some of his most obscure relations to ensure that McNair, the Carrows and Fenrir Greyback knew that the boy was around and only protected by what looked to be two young muggleborn witches, which were obviously no match for properly educated senior Death Eaters. Sadly he could not get rid of Yaxley. The upstart who had informed him about the presence of the boy was getting too cocky. He dared to make suggestions about what he, Lucius Malfoy was supposed to do. He had to be silenced somehow, but that required further planning.

Scene Break

The Group of four Death Eaters had followed the simple minded ministry flunky that Yaxley had used the Imperius on and ordered to tail the group of three. Luckily Yaxley had ordered the puppet to follow the boy and not the group per se. Otherwise the flunky would have stopped the moment the group had split. They followed the group on brooms, as they waited for a place to ambush them, till they stopped in a small town about 20 miles out of London. There they met another woman, which waited in front of a house that had a freshly placed sold shield in front of it. After the women of the group had greeted each other with a passionate kiss, that made the bigoted rage in the group rise to even higher levels, the trio was greeted by a couple with child that left the neighboring building to greet the group. Finally reaching the end of their patience the group let loose a barrage of Killing curses.

Scene Break

Alexandra had visited the first two houses and quickly ditched them as each of them had some flaws that made them obviously bad choices. The first one did not have a garden besides the small front yard, which was against her wives love for flowers and the whole feeling of the area was too negative for her own opinion.

The second one had at least one room to few as they needed a separate space to lock away their magical objects, just like the Nightwatch's rules and policy book said which funnily had to be stored the same way.

As she and the real estate agent visited the third object she felt like she had made the right choice in coming here and after a short inspection, backed up by a few spells indicating the houses overall structure and quality, Alexandra decided that this would be her new home and with a little help from her coworkers it would be ready to inhabit within a few days.

Alexandra, after haggling the price down a few percent (AN: without the usage of magic) and then a few more percent (AN: With magic) agreed to the deal with a clasp of hands. This caused the agent to immediately leave to a.) check Alexandra's financial credibility and b.) to print out the contract and earn herself a hefty sum.

A few minutes after the agent's hasty departure Alexandra heard the distinct sound of her wife's four door family car, which she for some reason needed to have a few months ago. Nowadays the need for said car self-explaining and probably was the short term manifestation of the Others clear sight orientated abilities.

"Oh Alex you it looks wonderful. Are there enough rooms and how about the garden? What does the kitchen look like?" Michaela started asking while hugging her wife and giving her a relatively chaste kiss. Harry was torn between awkwardly standing beside them and looking at their future home. He then noted a movement to his left and while looking at the source of the movement saw a group of two adults and a girl about his age closing in.

"Hello my name is Wendell Granger, this is my wife Monica (AN: I don't know their real names and as far as I know they were neither told, so I am sticking to the first names of their aliases.) and this is our daughter Hermione. Are you the new neighbors?" The man in the group said while politely greeting them. His wife responded in kind, but their daughter was a little shier and only gave a small wave.

"Well not for another hour, the real estate agent is printing the contract right now. This is my wife Michaela, this is our adopted son Harry and I am Alexandra. We are the Lights. It is nice to meet you."

This was the moment where everything went to hell. From high above a few salvos of four green lights streaked towards the group of six. The automatic defenses that the two fully trained sorceresses wore activated immediately and a shield made from hexagonal segments shimmering like crystal and a dome made from a slightly opaque glass sprung up and protected the group of six.

Those spells were commonly known as the shield of the sorcerer, which protected the one inside it, as long as you continuously fed it energy, against nearly everything. The second one was known as the negation sphere. It was far less draining as it only defended the ones inside against incoming spells, but for this kind of job you could hardly find a better defense. To destroy a sphere of the strength like the one provided by the amulet around Alexandra's neck you needed to use the scourge of Shaab several times to crack it, heck the spell even made a decent defense against a shadow of the gloom spell, at least for a few minutes.

The four Death Eaters were shocked. The protection around the group absorbed the killing curse without any of them seeming any worse the wear. Angrily and a little bit frightened they continued to fling their curses at them in the hope to do some damage.

Alexandra cursed. At least Alexandra murmured the closest thing to a curse a Light one is able to. It would take her several months to power those amulets up again. It was a wasted effort to use such strong amulets against such weak spells, but for her to erect an adequate defense in time to protect her son, herself and the innocent bystanders, which turned out to be their future neighbors was an impossible feat. Of course her wife and Alexandra herself could erect an adequate barrier around them in time but to expand it, in time to protect the others, was impossible without the amulets. Forming a W with the fingers of her left hand she hurled a threefold edge against their attackers bisecting two of them and making their remains fall to the ground. Alexandra asked herself how weak those fools were. They even were too weak to be some upstart dark Ones that wanted to test themselves. No discussion they had a good amount of hatred and other negative emotions in their spells and their plan to attack from above was decent as well, but their power level was abyssal.

Macnair disputably the most intelligent of the former quartet, now duet, was terrified. The grey colored spell one of the women had thrown at them had cut right through the Carrow twins and their spell resistant dragon hide armor. While Fenrir the undisputedly dumbest of them flew directly at them Walden tried to flee completely forgetting the possibility to apparate or to use a portkey.

While Michaela took care of the one flying right at them, by using a version of the grey devotion that worked against anyone who was not undead, Alexandra pulled out her gun, a Desert Eagle Mk1, and shot the fleeing one down from his broom, not killing him but seriously inhibiting him.

Seeing that the imminent danger was gone Wendel stood up and shouted at Alexandra. "What the hell is going on here?"


End file.
